Youth
by Fallaby Z
Summary: The days of our youth should have been long forgotten, yet somehow, our sins are unearthed again and again. Ceaselessly. Without fail. So much for escaping reality. KamuixOC?


_Welcome back. Let's play another game, shall we?_

* * *

**(1) Left Behind**

I remember when we were young, when we were naive and carefree. When battle meant racing beetles and when the only blood spilled was that of a scraped knee. I think we all knew back then that it wouldn't last; that someday, our bonds would break and we would scatter to the far ends of the universe. We would forget about each other. We would betray each other. Maybe we would even kill each other. We all knew this, but only I had a small hope that we would keep loving each other as we did when we were children.

It was a weak conception.

Our families were close knit in a way only Yato clans could be; strong fighters thrust together in the midst of battle, sticking together through the years purely because they guarded each others' backs and were good at it. I remember Uncle Umibozu often inviting us over for tea and cookies, my parents brusquely declining (they preferred the offer of a "friendly battle") while I eagerly scampered across the road for delicious almond crisps.

Kamui and Kagura were raised without a mother, yet I envied the way Uncle Umibozu seemed to fill up that gaping hole with his gregarious personality and odd tenderness. Father snarled that the man was going soft in his old age, though I loved the uncle who was kind and clumsy and honest and so very _real_.

Bonds made us stronger, not weaker. That was why, I concluded, Uncle Umibozu was the strongest of them all. It wasn't because he was the fastest or the most powerful; it was because he was able to love freely without being afraid of looking stupid.

Nobody understood the way I thought, and I didn't dare speak my mind to anyone but my closest friend of our small group: Kamui.

I could talk to Rui for girlish things that neither Kamui nor Shou had an appetite for, and I could speak to Shou of my fears and frustrations, and to Kagura I whispered my various secret dreams (to travel the world, to own a dog, to find the perfect place to settle down...), but with Kamui, I could tell him my deepest, darkest thoughts.

Perhaps it was because we were the eldest of our group and were born within weeks of each other. Perhaps it was because we were each other's only company for several years. Perhaps it was because I knew Kamui would never, ever tell any of my secrets to anyone, even if he blatantly disagreed. He would just keep his mouth shut and listen, his blue eyes quietly contemplative, and that was all I needed.

We were each other's outlet in a way. Kamui would let me indulge in fleeting moments of weakness, sitting there on the steps overlooking the large lake behind our houses. He would listen to my soft, _weak_ thoughts and bite his tongue, even though I knew he disapproved by the way his mouth curved sometimes in a muted frown. Likewise, he complained about his father in quiet, hushed tones. I didn't agree with the way he disrespected the man I adored (even idolized), but I held my tongue for him, too.

He should have lectured me for my fragility, and I should have scolded him for his irrational, bloodthirsty hatred, but in the time we were together, we simply fell silent, sitting there with our shoulders touching. Keeping the secrets of our personalities for each other, engaging in a short moment as the people we weren't allowed to be.

There was a time when I thought we could be together, Kamui and me. There was a time when I was foolishly blinded by the stolen glances, the clandestine touches, the way our lips meshed together when nobody was looking. I was too blind to notice the color of his eyes began changing, his sour complaints fading away into eerie nothingness.

When I returned from a day trip to a nearby planet, I returned to a clan village turned upside-down. I returned to a place where my neighbors stumbled out of their homes, bloodied and disillusioned, hate running down their cheeks in the form of tears.

"I'm going to kill him," Shou grunted, his hands shaking with a maddening combination of icy fear and boiling rage. "Oh God, I'm going to rip him apart, limb by limp-thank God you left-I'm going to _kill him_ for what that motherfucker did to Rui-" He continued in this rambling, incoherent manner until I interrupted, him, confused and frightened at once.

"What? Who? Who did what? Where is Rui?"

"Kamui." Shou spat the name out, his eyes hazy with red, red rage. "He changed. The bastard went into every house all of a sudden, targeting the weaker Yato and killing them all off. He went to your house too, to look for you, but you were gone. He's going back to Umibozu's to kill him and Kagura last."

Instantly, my knees went weak, but I struggled to gather my wits about me as I dashed into Rui's house, blood pumping loudly in my ears, hoping, wishing, praying to whatever God was listening that Shou's words weren't true, that it was all just a crude joke, that my best friend was still alive and that Kamui was still _my_ Kamui.

I found her lying in the center of her family's collapsed family room. The walls were cracked and the windows were broken. A hole had been punched clean through the television, and the sitting table was upended, Rui's mother's favorite tea set scattered in bloody shards across the tatami floor.

Rui and her parents were holding onto each other, her father bloodied and broken, shielding the two females, whose chests was such a gory sight that I felt bile rise in my throat.

_He ripped their hearts right out of their chests._

I was sick on the floor, dry heaving as tears flooded from my eyes, the image of Rui _dead_ burning a hole into my skull, my mind replaying what could have and probably did occur in the brief moments when I wasn't there.

_Kamui did this._

When I thought of him, my feet immediately carried me to his house, throwing open the door to find my friend, the man that I may have even started to _love_, raising his umbrella against his own father and sister.

How could I have been so blind? So blind to see the thirst written plainly across his face, the shameless exterior that he wore proudly as a crown, his hands covered with the sin of attempting to murder the man that raised him, the sin of murdering a fellow Yato, weak or not.

I, like Rui, was one of the weaker girls in our clan, gentler in personality than most, but at that moment, I felt a hot, red rage blinding me as I dove in between them, thrusting Kamui away with a kick that was evidently more powerful than it felt.

Reading Kamui's emotions was a difficult task, but I caught flickers of surprise in his hooded blue eyes and a hint of something sour around his mouth as he took a step back, balancing himself. I shielded Kagura, whose eyes (so much like her brother's yet so different) were wide and disbelieving.

"Kamui, what are you doing?" All the pent up words that I couldn't say over the years poured out all at once. Everything I had kept bottled up in our secret moments together spilled out in gushes of weak, weak, _weak _tears. "_Kamui, what have you done?_"

I recognized the bitterness concealed within his distant smile now. The acidic pang of betrayal squeezed the last drop of love I had for my friend out of my heart. He never cared for me, never cared about listening to my thoughts. He was laughing at me, mocking my stupidity, leading me on a merry chase as I followed him like an idiotic puppy. I was so foolish, falling for the man who never cared for me, who toyed with me as a pastime, who tricked me with his forked tongue into giving him my heart when all he thirsted for was lust.

I saw this now in his blank, unseeing eyes, boring through me as if I were invisible. I bit my lip against the underlying current of raging hate and the hateful love that I somehow-_somehow!_-still held for him, simply standing there, crying like the pathetic fool I really was.

_How could you throw this all away for something as foolish as bloodlust?_

Kamui seemed to understand I was trying to say to him (but couldn't), his eyes narrowing in the distinct gesture of disgust.

"Your _bonds_ haven't ever held an ounce of importance to me." Sealing the deal with these last words, he collected his things and his umbrella, brushing past me without even a glance, his hands stained red with dried, cracking blood but not a hair out of place.

I heard the sound of my heart breaking as I collapsed to the ground, the thumping blood in my ears gradually fading to a low buzz. I heard Kagura patter out the door in tears, chasing her vagabond brother. I felt Uncle Umibozu's large, warm hand comfort me as I sat there blankly, my mind still unwilling to accept the fact that Kamui had _left_.

He had left everything here. He had left Rui and Shou and Uncle and Kagura. He had left _me_.

He had thrown away my love, our _bond_, the thing that I had valued most, the secret I had asked him to cherish. He had thrown it away like trash-for what? For what purpose?

For power.

For strength.

For blood.

The foolish, lovesick teenager, drunk from soft words and poisonous lips, withered whispering her death knell, pining for the man she couldn't have, still hopelessly obsessed with the man that seduced her as the last joke he'd play on her.

I love you.

_I love you._

He was the wolf and she the sheep. So easily tricked, so easily devoured.

The sheep was dead.

**YEARS LATER**

"Shigi, reporting for duty." I pressed the comms unit in my ear as I stepped through the sliding door leading to the chief's office. The metal ground shifted beneath my feet and I stepped forward uneasily; even after living on a spaceship for a year, a rickety, ridiculously expensive boat suspended in nothing was still just a _rickety boat_.

Sea legs and space legs were definitely not in my capacity.

"Chief." I stopped just short of the voluptuous woman's desk and saluted sharply. Chief Yamaka was a woman renowned for her unsurpassed beauty, intelligence, and sense of justice. Even though she was a mere human, she was a leading figure in establishing the Space Police Force.

Chief Yamaka smiled warmly, waving at me to sit. "No thank you," I replied, folding my hands behind my back. "I prefer to stand."

She was a troublingly conniving figure, manipulative in every way one could imagine. Chief Yamaka had always tried to sway me to her side with her sweet words and friendly smiles, but I would unwaveringly maintain my cool position of neutrality. Vapid compliments and half-hearted gestures didn't impress me. Not anymore.

The chief shrugged in a way that said 'suit yourself' before starting. "As the sole Yato in our transgalactic police force, I understand that you have asked and are more than capable of the highest level missions that normal humans and Amanto are unable to undertake."

"Yes, ma'am." This conversation was going nowhere.

Sensing my underlying impatience, the police force chief cut to the chase. "I have express permission from the executive of the Transgalactic Space Peace Corporation to send you undercover on a mission to infiltrate the Harusame Space Pirates."

My mind went in overdrive, thinking of all the different possibilities, the targets, the plans, the utilities needed.

"We want you to arrest someone in particular; he is the most powerful of the Pirates at the moment, and it would be for the good of all livingkind to have this man behind bars or...well, _unable to function_." _Dead. Or close to it._

Chief Yamaka slid a manila file across her large desk toward me. "I have selected you based on your special _background_, as I believe that you will have the best chance of success than anyone in the force."

Expecting the usual fritter-brained military commander, I flipped open the file uncaringly, halting only when I caught sight of the familiar face that smiled out at me.

My entire body went cold.

"His name is Kamui of the Yato, Captain of the 7th Division."

The wolf was back.

* * *

_So...another KamuixOC story, yes?_

_This one delves into Kamui's darker, harsher side and is what I feel the more interesting side of him. Minimally edited chapter, so if anything's confusing, don't hesitate to ask and I'll clarify it for you. Honestly, I don't know at this point if Shigi and Kamui will get together in the end because he's a real ass and it would take a real hardcore conversion for Shigi to accept him again, if you know what I mean. _

_Also, if you couldn't pick it out, basically Kamui was just leading Shigi on the whole time and he _was _eventually going to kill her along with all the other "weak links" in the village. (I have no idea where the Yato are from, so I just made up a random village. Enlighten me please?)_

_So yeah. I'm kind of unsatisfied with Let's Play a Game (I feel like everything was TOO EASY and my writing was at an even suckier state back then), so I wanted to write something more mature/complex (?) with lots of angst because let's face it, we all love angsty, evil Kamui._

_Review for a fantastic love-hate relationship that I will undoubtedly have trouble writing._


End file.
